{"id":320,"date":"2009-05-14T22:28:08","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T05:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/?p=320"},"modified":"2013-11-11T20:26:48","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T03:26:48","slug":"popular-kids-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/2009\/05\/14\/popular-kids-books\/","title":{"rendered":"popular children’s books I hate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Children's<\/a><\/div>\n

The winners of the 2009 Children’s Choice Book Awards<\/a>, announced this week, include The Pigeon Wants a Puppy<\/a>, by Mo Willems, as the Kindergarten to Second Grade Book of the Year. While I’m charmed by the simplicity of Mo Willems’ drawings, and I think his Elephant and Piggie are the best pair of friends in kid lit since Frog and Toad, I don’t like the pleading pigeon. I understand the role reversal. I understand the delight some children experience in saying, rather than hearing, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no, no, no.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I get it. I just don’t enjoy it.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Another popular children’s book that gets on my nerves is The Tale of Despereaux<\/a>. I was along for the ride through most of the first few chapters, though I bristled every time DiCamillo addressed me as “Reader” — only Charlotte Bront\u00c3\u00ab gets to call me “Reader” (N.B. This is in no small part why I stopped reading the often lovely Gluten-Free Girl<\/a>). DiCamillo lost me when she asked if I knew the definition of “perfidy,” and admonished me to look up the word in my dictionary just to be sure. I can’t abide a finger-wagging narrator. I kept reading, since I was sharing the story with my girl, despite the tone and the inelegant perspective shifts, but I didn’t get through the whole tale. I adopted a “don’t offer, don’t refuse” policy at storytime, and my daughter lost interest in the story — something she hasn’t done with any other bedtime book.<\/p>\n

And I may be banished from the nerddom for telling, but I don’t enjoy The Phantom Tollbooth, either. It’s entirely too clever and at some point the wordplay becomes simply tiresome. Again, I get it. I just don’t like it. <\/p>\n

And you? What well-regarded kid’s books would you like never to read again?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The winners of the 2009 Children’s Choice Book Awards, announced this week, include The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, by Mo Willems, as the Kindergarten to Second Grade Book of the Year. While I’m charmed by the simplicity of Mo Willems’ drawings, and I think his Elephant and Piggie are the best pair of friends in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[68,67,69],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens","tag-phantom-tollbooth","tag-pigeon-wants-a-puppy","tag-tale-of-despereaux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":590,"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pertuset.net\/openbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}